


Paddlin' With the Occult

by KannaOphelia



Series: Jazz Age Ineffable Husbands [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 1920s, Aziraphale and Crowley in Love (Good Omens), Aziraphale really can't take Crowley anywhere, Banned Together Bingo, Bickering is an expression of true love, Bright Young People, Crowley has the sophisticated sense of humour of a twelve year old, Demon Summoning, Established Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Fluff, Giant Demonic Cocks, Humour, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Kissing, Lap-sittting, M/M, One Shot, Prompt: Occult and Demons, References to Drugs, Sexual References, Stand-alone, gratuitous dick jokes, seances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:13:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24514411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KannaOphelia/pseuds/KannaOphelia
Summary: 1929. An angel and a demon in a clandestine relationship attending a seance held by a fashionable society medium.What could possibly go wrong?For answer, see tags.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Jazz Age Ineffable Husbands [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1771489
Comments: 21
Kudos: 126
Collections: An Angel and a Demon Walked into a Bookshop: Ineffable Husbands Stories, Banned Banned Together Bingo 2020, Banned Together Bingo 2020





	Paddlin' With the Occult

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IneffableDemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableDemon/gifts).



> For Val, because you don't know how much sunshine squeeing to you about tropes and music has brought into my life at times I've really needed it, and because you enabled me. 
> 
> This is set in the same universe as _There Will Come a Day_ but stands alone. All you really need to know is that the husbands are together, and it's the late 1920s.
    
    
      "I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble."
    "But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.
    "That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.”  
    
    --Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies
    

**1929**

"Well, it's _possible_ that Mrs Cumberbatch has some actual spiritual powers."1

"Unlikely," Aziraphale snorted. "Not in the twentieth century. All that is done with."

"Don't you think we should check her out, just in case?" wheedled Crowley. "I mean, what if this Sweet William or whatever her familiar is called is a real demon? A human being manipulated by a demon and drawing other humans into the web of occult deception. Shouldn't you investigate and thwart, like my good angel?"

The _my_ was an unfair blow. Melting into a puddle of _yours, yours, yours_ would undermine Aziraphale's point entirely. It was still, like the possessive arm lying around his shoulders and the long legs hooked casually over his, something too sweet and new to take altogether calmly. It was an effort to keep his voice crisp.

"So what do you get out of this?"

"Isn't helping you out in the spirit of the Arrangement enough, poppet?" Aziraphale snorted a second time, leaving it ambiguous whether it was in disbelief or in response to the undignified endearment. "And I'll get to hold your hand in public." Crowley mouthed down Aziraphale's hairline to his ear and slid a suddenly forked tongue against it. "It's theatre and writer folk at the seance, your kind _and_ mine. Half of them are queer as Miss Nancy. No one will mind if I sit on your lap. Be like Ancient Persia all over again."

"You never sat on my lap in Ancient Persia."

"Believe me, angel, I've regretted it for centuries." Crowley wriggled a bit, moving more fully onto Aziraphale's lap. "Half your thighs were bare, and I used to think, such a waste of all that peachy skin. Never thought you'd let a demon snuggle up on your thighs."

"No one minds if you sit on my lap _here_ ," Aziraphale pointed out, pulling Crowley to sit comfortably on his lap, or as comfortably as a wriggling, lanky creature could be. He would take the discomfort of Crowley's bony body over any other comfort in the world.

"I like showing you off, especially if you let me get you a decent dinner jacket instead of those tails. And _you_ like soft leather driving gloves against that pampered skin, too. I think you have a thing for it."

"Hmmph."

"I heard a rumour that George Metaxis is going to be singing there. You know you do admit the musical plays of this era are fun. Quite the Noel Coward fan, you."

"So it's merely an excuse to take me to a party. Probably showing off that infernal new contraption of yours more than me. You know I detest the whole Bright Young People thing."

Crowley grinned at him, unabashed. "You loved _Bitter Sweet_. You said one of the few good things about this century is the musical plays. You had tears in your eyes and talked about fleeting human love all night. You can meet George and tell him how talented you thought him. Come on, my darling, my dove, my dainty duck—"

 _"Not_ your dainty duck. Ever."

" _If I could but take that little hand of yours, just to lead you secretly away._ " Crowley blessedly stopped singing for a moment to press his kisses over what was not exactly a little hand, although it was a well-kept one.

"Oh, don't try to sing. Is it a torment you share with all lost souls, or only the musical ones?"

"You're a bastard," Crowley said adoringly.

"Who can't deny you anything," Aziraphale sighed. Crowley smirked with triumph, which was irritating, so Aziraphale decided to kiss it off his mouth.

"I deserve it, anyway."

"Why, what have you done lately?"

"It's what I'm _about_ to do to earn it," Crowley leered, beginning to undo Aziraphale's bowtie.

"Oh, well, if it's such hard work, I couldn't possibly ask it of you."

"Labour of love, I tell you." Crowley said _love_ so easily now, no bitterness or sadness behind it. How could Aziraphale say no to anything he wanted? Not when his own heart ached with love. Especially with cool lips pressed yearningly against his skin. After all, his demon deserved a party, even if it was an irritating high society business with too many drugs and a ridiculous seance. "Anyway, speaking of it, might get some work done while we're there."

That was reasonable, Aziraphale decided, while he still had enough attention left to think. Crowley had been neglecting his work lately. A bit hard to pay attention, he'd admitted, not when he had _better_ things to pay attention to. He was too happy, he'd whispered against Aziraphale's chest one night, to want to do much harm to the poor human sods. Instead of being pleased that the humans were having a reprieve, Aziraphale had selfishly worried that Crowley would get in trouble.

Let the demon do a spot of mischief. He'd been so good lately. So very, very good. He needed some outlet for his fundamental nature other than lust and sloth.

* * *

"I can't say Sweet William has ever spelled out anything like _that_ before." The slender lady with the unlikely appellation Lumpy seemed torn between giggles and horror. Her nerves might, Aziraphale thought kindly, have been because she didn't yet realise the substance she concealed in her interesting wristwatch had miraculously turned to powdered sugar. Still, the rocking table's language had been somewhat carnally explicit after Mrs Cumberbatch had announced her familiar had a message for Aziraphale.

"Perhaps it's demonic interference," Aziraphale said. He kicked Crowley's ankle under the rocking table. "If we all prayed to exorcise any demons present—"

"Don't you bloody dare," hissed Crowley, and Aziraphale smirked at him, squeezing his hand a little too hard for pure affection.

"Oh, are you an atheist? How daring! I was a communist for a bit last year, but Daddy said I would have to give up my allowance," confided Knobbles, a young human of about forty-five. "I looked splendid in red ties."

Mrs Cumberbatch had the drawn expression of a spiritualist whose table had actually begun to move due to spiritual power. "Naughty Sweet William!" she said in high pitched terror masquerading as spriteliness. Her dubious Egyptian beads were falling down over her forehead. "He will have his little jokes. Perhaps I should try for a manifestation instead."

"One more try for luck," Aziraphale said brightly. Yellow eyes glimmered at him over the top of dark spectacles. From outside the dim room where the chosen few were getting to enjoy the medium's powers, the muffled sounds of voices and music still sounded.

P-E-A-C-E-A-N-D-G-O-O-D-W-I-L-L. Mrs Cumberbatch was beginning to relax, while the partygoers were looking more bored. Aziraphale, for his part, was straining all his powers, fighting the tendency of the board to move against his own will, good or otherwise. He could see the white gleam of Crowley's teeth in the darkness.

A-N-D-G-I-V-E-U-P-T-H-E-C— The table rocked wildly between the O and the H and then flung itself against the wall.

"Oh dear," said Lady White. Aziraphale snapped his fingers discreetly and the decorations decided not to go up in flames.

"Manifestations, I can feel some visitors wanting to manifest!" Mrs Cumberbatch said with desperate brightness, and then froze in shock as a cloud of genuine ectoplasm poured out of her mouth.2

"Oh, _really_ , dearest," Aziraphale muttered as a giant glowing phallus formed out of the mist.

"It'sssss funny."

"Height of wit in Ancient Rome, I know, but surely humour is more sophisticated these days."

"Some humour never dates. The humans agree," Crowley countered, as Lumpy and her friend Vere fell off their chairs in hysterical laughter, breaking the circle.

The ectoplasm took shape, and the laughter abruptly stopped as the ectoplasm flowed out of the broken circle and formed a cloaked figure.

" _Crowley_!" Aziraphale reminded himself that he was not a smiter, he hated smiting, and he certainly would not smite the most beloved creature to him in the world, no matter how profoundly he deserved it.

"This one's not me," Crowley said. He slid a protective arm around Aziraphale's waist, his shoulders squaring up as if ready to fight, snapping off his spectacles with a free hand as if taking the safety off a gun. "Any holy water on you?"

"Not around you, my dear. Demonic, then?"

"Oh, yes." Crowley's eyes were expanded wide with concentration or fear, huge and yellow and infernal. Knobbles tore his attention away from the ectoplasm to look at him, yelped with terror, and scrambled backwards.

The figure was manifesting itself more solidly and in more detail. It looked around at Knobbles' yelp, although it didn't have eyes. One eye. It only had a head in a very broad manner of speaking, Aziraphale realised as it— _he_ , that thing had to be presenting as a he, somewhat aggressively so—pushed back his hood.

"Good Lord," Vere said. "How can it see? It doesn't have eyes, just a giant..."

"Oh, this is most _definitely_ your fault," hissed Aziraphale. "Just summon giant demonic cocks at a seance, what harm could it do?"

"It's pretty natural when I have a giant demonic—" Crowley could never resist an opportunity handed to him on a plate.

The being turned towards him at his voice. "Crowley. It's you. Why am I not surprised?"

"Hullo, Priapus. It's been a long time. Um, interesting manifestation. Usually you have more. Ah. Mouths. Noses. I mean, it's usually more between your, ah... I mean, good size, but you usually have more body above it."3

"Are we making small talk with it now?" demanded Aziraphale.

"You have your arm around an angel, Crowley."

Crowley looked down at the arm clamping Aziraphale's waist to his side, as if astonished to find it there. "Do I?"

"Oh, I think Mr Fell's an angel, too!" Lumpy enthused. "Knobbles, darling, what _was_ in that powder? It's marvellous."

"I've, ah, taken the angel prisoner?" Crowley hazarded. "Yes. Aha. I have you now, foul... pure... _angel._ "

It was remarkable how the demon managed to look dubious when it only had a mouth if a frankly terrifying slit counted. Aziraphale had a sudden moment of fear for Crowley and a rush of inspiration. "Prisoner of my own sin and desire for forbidden pleasure," he said sadly. "And now Hell is seeing my shame, falling for the lustful wiles of the Original Tempter. Oh, woe."

"Pull the other one, that one's got bells on," said Priapus. "Crowley's hasn't got nearly enough It Factor to seduce an angel."

Aziraphale drew in an offended breath. This was too much to take from a giant walking erection. "Forgive the correction, but Crowley is _extremely_ handsome. Anyone with eyes would fall for his wiles."

How Crowley managed to look doting with his eyes in full serpent mode was beyond Aziraphale. It also worried him. Crowley should possibly not be looking at an angel with blatant adoration in front of a demon. Still, Crowley would probably know the right thing to say to put the right thing back on a properly sinful basis.

"Not nearly as handsome as you are, my precious poppet," Crowley crooned. He dropped a kiss on Aziraphale's cheek as if they were all alone and not in the middle of a demon summoning. Affectionate and cherishing, not even properly demonically lustful.

"Begone with your sordid temptations, fiend," Aziraphale said weakly. Well, to be fair, it probably _was_ the right technique to use with him. His bones were melting despite himself.

"Crowley. I trust you have a reason for this sickening display of sentiment? Be prepared to explain to the Dark Council."

"Yeah, um, ahh, right. An explanation. Just give me a moment." He turned back to Aziraphale. "Trust me, sweetheart, take the humans and leave the room. I'll talk to my friend there."

"I won't leave you if you're in trouble," Aziraphale said, abandoning all attempts to pretend he wasn't devoted to Crowley. After all, if Crowley wasn't going to play along, there wasn't much point in him doing so. "I'm the soldier."

Crowley leaned in again and kissed his ear before murmuring in it. "You're a Principality. Look after the humans, it's your role. I'll deal with Priapus, and it will be fine. Look, you made our case to Michael, I'll manage with dickhead here." Aziraphale hesitated. "You can trust me."

"You're a demon."

"Demon, yeah, but am I your demon husband or not?"

Aziraphale bit his lip in shock. Crowley had said that as if it was something they had discussed and agreed on long ago, but to his knowledge, neither of them had said the word. "You are."

He didn't see as well in low light as Crowley, but he could see from the relieved twitch of his mouth that Crowley hadn't been sure of the answer, even yet. Some part of Crowley was still afraid that what was between them would come to an end. And that Crowley was afraid. Not of a lust demon, but of what it meant that time was up and Hell would know about him. This was _If I go then let me go knowing you're my husband_ , because Crowley wasn't sure of coming back.

"You'll summon me if you're in danger?"

"Sure, yeah, of course. Right away."

"Don't lie to me, Crowley. I'll know you're in danger, and I'll come for you. So don't put me in a position where I have to."

Crowley's mouth twisted and made a sort of _fffppt fffppt fffppt_ noise, as if he was trying to find words, and then gave up and kissed him long and dizzyingly deep, in front of four humans and a phallic demon.

"You'll come back to me, my husband, or I'll know why," Aziraphale said firmly, and then pushed the slightly dazed demon towards the far less prepossessing one. He started herding humans out of the room.

* * *

Aziraphale fixed up a few memories, scattered a few blessings around, and went home. His head was already aching at the thought of the paperwork that was going to ensue. Accounting would be sure to notice so many miracles, and the archangel had never been quite on board with Michael and the Metatron with the whole "Wait and see how the true love with a demon thing pans out." He was always unnecessarily pointed about checking Aziraphale's wings for signs of darkening.

Then he tipped in some loose pages of new acquisitions and tightened their hinges, painstaking fiddly work that was more satisfying done by hand than using miracles. He perused some messages sent by friends in the trade, and made some decisions about which leads were worth pursuing.

And then he dithered. He fiddled, he moved books around, he made endless cups of tea and didn't drink them, ran across them again, sipped them, and then banished them into the ether with annoyance when they turned out to be cool. He wandered over and stared at the couch an the back room as if it would manifest a scowling, complaining, clinging octopus of a demon if he glared accusingly enough. He lost focus enough, on the second morning, to sell someone his unread copy of _Now We Are Six_. He even gave them too much change. Such a pity, Crowley could always be put out of a bad mood by reading him _Vespers_ , and Aziraphale had hoped the new collection would also have something in it that would make Crowley fall off his chair laughing.

Crowley.

Aziraphale would give anything to hear his bark of laughter right now.

Or arms sliding around his waist from behind, cool lips pressed against his cheek, "A-zir-a-phaaaale," breathed into his ear like a prayer...

Aziraphale spun around and kissed him fiercely.

"Missed me, then?" Crowley was smirking, but even behind his dark spectacles, Aziraphale could see that the lines of his eyes were tired. Aziraphale removed the spectacles and kissed the corners of his eyes.

"Why would I miss you? Great lump of a snake making the place look untidy." He could hear the quaver in his voice.

"Angel, a hurricane wouldn't make this place look less tidy." Crowley collapsed on his couch, pulling Aziraphale with him onto his lap, as if he couldn't let go. He released a hand briefly to wave at the doors, locking them, then lodged it firmly back on the small of Aziraphale's back.

"Are you going to tell me how it worked out?"

Crowley winced slightly, and Aziraphale knew better than to prod. Interrogations in Heaven were bad enough; he couldn't imagine what being up against the Dark Council was like. "I'm fine. You know me. Can talk myself out of anything. And it's not like marrying humans doesn't have a long and storied history in terms of temptation and winning souls. An angel is a bit of a new feat. They listened in time."

Aziraphale leaned his cheek against his precious demon's and kissed his hair, dodgy brilliantine and all, and heard the dark things in the spaces between the words. Perhaps Crowley would tell him in time, and perhaps not. It wasn't as if he had ever shared the details of his conversation with Michael with Crowley.

"I'm afraid I had to say some somewhat sordid things about you, baby," said Crowley, and Aziraphale felt his usual mixture of irritation and softness at the ridiculous American endearment, as well as profound gratitude that he had the _chance_ to be irritated.

"I did expect that any conversation with Asmodeus and Priapus would be on the risqué side. Please spare me the specifics."

"I don't want to think about that giant cock ever again." Crowley shuddered as if a slug was crawling down his spine.

"There's far more interesting giant demonic cocks," Aziraphale agreed, primly. "Or at least one."

"If _that_ wasn't an engraved invitation..."

Aziraphale kissed him, long and slow and sweet, rolling his tongue against Crowley's. "I missed you, my husband."

"Husband... oh, love. You meant it?"

"Always. I love you so much. But no more seances."

"Yeah, that was a bad idea, sorry. Now let me show you a better idea."

And as clothes were shed and kisses and caresses exchanged, Hell and Heaven came together, to the tune of soft impassioned words:

"No, you are _not_ inadequate compared to Priapus. You're perfectly adequate."

" _Perfectly adequate?_ What kind of thing is that to say to your husband? What about giant, impressive, terrifying..."

"Oh, for Heaven's sake."

"And what kind of thing is _that_ to say in bed with a demon? Why not bless me while you're at it?"

"Crowley, _shut up._ "

And peace fell upon the world.

As for Mrs Cumberbatch, her notoriety grew after the party, and she had to devise some new party tricks involving rather more phallic looking manifestations than before. She grew rich and famous, until one day she was visited with the true gift of prophecy...

...but that's another story.

* * *

1 Not named for the actor. Mrs Cumberbatch and her familiar's names are taken from E. F. Benson's 1923 short story _My Tilly's Seance_ , which has some elements very reminiscent of _Good Omens_. ↩

2 Most of my knowledge of fraudulent seances is taken from _Spooky Science_ by John Grant. Ectoplasmic manifestations were usually made from cloth, paper and newspaper and magazine pictures ↩

3 _This_ manifestation. 

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out [Banned Together Bingo](https://bannedtogetherbingo2020.tumblr.com), a fandom event to draw attention to censorship in books and fanfic. "Demons and the Occult" was almost too easy a fill...
> 
> Still behind on answering comments, but I love them and I love you all.


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